A Romp Through Ponyville
by OtterFrog
Summary: Ever wanted to visit Ponyville yourself? It may not be as much fun as you think! ;
1. Chapter 1

**A Romp Through Ponyville**

(I do not own any of the Pony characters, nor any real estate in Ponyville. I do however, own the character Breck Haines. She's my alter ego, so to speak )

Stupid horse.

That's all he was, one big bone-headed buckskin gelding. I've owned a lot of horses in my time, some smart, some not-so-smart, but when it came to sheer brainlessness Taw took the cake. Hell, he just up and took the whole bakery in that department! Just when I thought I figured out his quirks and could prepare for any idiocy he could perform he went and threw me!

Now if it had been something along the lines of blowing trash that had spooked him, or a loud bang, or a dog rushing between his hooves I could forgive him for that but…a shiny spoofy cloud? Come on! Yes it appeared suddenly, floating all pinkish and sparkly but for pete's sake it was just a CLOUD! A poof of glitter from somewhere. A kid's party balloon popping perhaps? I didn't hear much of a pop, more like a 'pfft' and then it was there.

And that stupid moronic mustang spooked and threw me off right into it!

As weird as that cloud was, the fall was weirder. It seemed to take forever to hit and I couldn't even see any ground, trees, bushes or dirt as I was surrounded by that danged sparkly cloud. Then I hit. And hit hard too!

Hard and flat on the hard and flat ground. Ow.

Ever have the wind knocked out of you? It's not as simple as taking a deep breath to replace what was squashed out of your lungs; it's like trying to re-inflate an inner tube stuck under a Saint Bernard with a hand pump. You just lie there taking in short quick gasps and wondering if someone would help you by shoving a tube down your throat and blowing into it. There's little sparks floating in front of your eyes and everything you see seems to be in the midst of a thick fog.

I can still hear pretty good though, as I laid there imitating a grounded carp. Voices, there were people around me, somewhere. Good. Somebody please call a paramedic then?

"What…is it?" came one small voice from somewhere near me.

"Where did it come from?" came another.

"Is it…dangerous?"

"It doesn't look like it is. But one can't be sure. Stay back, for now."

"Aw I can handle it, if it tries anything," That rather arrogant voice sounded more masculine than the others. A teen, perhaps.

"But what –is- it, an ape?" the first voice insisted. "It's…ugly, isn't it?"

Ok, that's enough of that, I figured. I shook my head, trying to clear it and made an attempt to sit up and heard some scuttling sounds as if a group were hurriedly backing away. I blinked but found my glasses had been knocked off my face and were somewhere else. Great. Just bought the danged things too. My squinting about only produced vague roundish shapes still draped in that stupid sparkly cloud. They really must have a problem with glitter smog then.

"Careful, we don't know what it can do."

"Well, it certainly ruined a perfectly good picnic, that's what it did!" a voice ladened with a country accent put in rather peevishly. "Who spilled lemonade on my apple fritters?"

"I'm sorry, Apple Jack, that was me. I was just so startled by this….creature that came crashing down."

My head now felt like it was swelling to three different sizes and some imp with an ice pick was trying to poke my eyeballs out from the insides. I rubbed my head and tried not to feel sick from it all. "Oh man." I moaned. "What happened? Where am I? Where's Taw! I am so going to turn him into the latest flavor of dog food!"

"It talks!"

Oh-kay. That didn't clear anything up. "Does anybody see my glasses?" I asked a bit weakly. I had managed to get into a sitting position with my knees up and leaned my head against them, closing my eyes. I did not feel at all well. The whole ground seemed to have turned into a slow Tilt-A-Whirl. Stop this ride, I need to get off!

"Glasses? Anyone see any glasses?" There was more shuffling about. I hoped they wouldn't be found by someone stepping on them but then came "Here they are! I think."

The familiar feel of my eyewear was thrust into my left hand and I gave a nod of thanks. Lifting my aching head I put them on then looked about.

Ponies. I was sitting in the middle of a herd of ponies. But what ponies! Since when did Equus caballus come in technicolors? And is that a….I squinted again…a –horn- on the forehead of one of them?

Somebody sure went through a lot of trouble to paint and deck out this herd. Were they in a circus, or in Las Vegas? Trouble was, it just all looked so natural for them! I studied them and they seemed to be studying me right back. Well, time to get some answers. I heard voices but have yet to see the people. "Hello?" I called out, looking about. "Hello! I need some help here! Anybody here?"

"Well, I –like- that!" came the country-sounding voice again. "Of all the nerve! Talking like we ain't even here!"

I turned my head, carefully, and stared straight into the face of an orange pony with, of all things, a cowboy hat on! Her extremely large green eyes stared right back into mine. "Eh-excuse me?" I said carefully.

"You might say 'Sorry' instead. It makes for a better apology,' it answered.

I blinked. The apparition remained. Then I said something absolutely brilliant.

"You…talk."

"Ah, yes. I do. Ever since I was two months old, as a matter of fact!" The orange pony snorted. Turning to what appeared to be a unicorn besides it, it held up a foreleg to the side of its mouth and not-quite whispered "You sure it's not dangerous? It doesn't seem –all there-!"

"Well, it –did- have a nasty fall, Apple Jack." Dang, the unicorn talked as well! "Perhaps it's hurt!"

"Just to be safe perhaps it should go back to where it came from." This was from a yellow pony with a great floofy pink mane. And…wings? I swallowed hard. I definitely wasn't in Kansas anymore and I didn't even have a Toto!

"Aw I think it's cute!" gushed a very tiny white unicorn with a curly purple mane. "Can we keep it? Can we keep it?"

"I don't think so, Sweetie Bell. We don't know anything about it."

Nice, I had just been downgraded to a stray. Enough of this. Dizzy or not I decided to try to get to my feet. If my body decided to eject this morning's breakfast it might keep these weird talking creatures at bay. I staggered a bit and grabbed a nearby tree branch for support. Finally at full height I took a deep breath.

"Ok, ok, let's try to make some sense now. Where am I? How did I get here and…" Here I looked at the group of colored talking ponies again. "Just who and what the hell are you?"

"There's no need to be impolite," the unicorn spoke up. "I'm sure this is just a slight…mixup and all will be resolved soon. My name is Twilight, these are my friends and you're in Ponyville Park."

"So don't try nuthin'!" That was the self-assured teen male voice I had heard before, right besides me, somewhere. I looked down and instead of a talking pony there was a green and purple chunky….reptile thing.

"Great. Talking horses and now" I rubbed my forehead. "A talking lizard."

"Lizard! LIZARD!" The creature was enraged. It stalked in front of me and stared straight up, fists clenched and rather sharp teeth showing. "I. Am. A. DRAGON! A DRAGON, got it! NOT. A. LIZARD!" It poked my kneecap firmly with a pointy clawed finger. Even through my jeans it hurt. "A DRAGON!"

Riling up the locals never does bode well so I held up my hands. "Ok ok! Sorry! Sorry! I never met a dragon before! They're…not exactly common where I come from."

"And where do you come from?" Twilight asked. She seemed to be the leader of the group.

Good question. I knew where, of course, but how to relate it to wherever this place was? "Um…North Carolina."

All I got was blank stares from the group.

"USA?"

They started looking at each other.

"Earth?"

"Let's try another question. Who are you?"

"And WHAT are you?" the dragon put in.

I wasn't sure how to answer that last one, I gathered there were no regular people about in this place. "Well, my name if Breck Haines and I'm a human."

"Heuy-man." The dragon mouthed the word as if it were bad cheese. The ponies simply looked at each other again.

"Wait, let me guess, we're extinct here, right?"

"Truthfully I have never heard of any such species." Twilight said, a slight frown furrowing her large eyes. "I am going to have to do some research. In the meantime can you give us your word that you will not do nor bring any harm to any of us or our world?"

I plomped down in the grass again. "The way I feel right now I couldn't bring any harm to a drowned minnow. Look, I'm not looking to hurt anybody or anything. I just want to get this straightened out so I can get back to my home. And kill Taw." I added under my breath.

"In the meantime we have a picnic here!" came a cheerful call from a very pink pony. So pink it almost hurt the eyes."Let's not leave it to the ants! C'mon!"

This caused a lot of cheers from the group of very small foals and they rushed towards a large table set with a huge amount of typical picnic goodies. The orange pony remained besides me.

"I'm Apple Jack," she said cheerfully. "Sorry if I was a bit brisk but you…" she looked me up and down. "You –are- a bit strange! Care for a fritter?"

My stomach didn't feel quite ready for such rich fare. "Maybe just a cool drink?"

"A nice tall glass of apple cider comin' right up!" she trotted off, leaving me wondering if I just hadn't hit my head on some tree branch somewhere.

Now that would be the easiest explanation, my body lying in a trauma unit somewhere and my mind simply taking a nice little trip through Lala Land. I decided to seize on that as fact and felt a bit more cheerful about this whole thing.


	2. Chapter 2

Ponyville Chapter Two

I sat there under a tree wishing my head didn't ache so darned much when AppleJack came back, holding a tray in her teeth. A glass was balanced neatly in the middle of it, not wobbling in the slightest. Pretty neat trick for a pony to do as they have to lift their chin almost completely horizontal to keep the whole thing level. Even though I didn't ask for one a nice little fritter was present as well. I took the tray so she wouldn't get a stiff neck, thanked her and took a sip of the cider. Not bad, pretty good, in fact.

"So." AppleJack sat down beside me (Ponies can sit?) "Let me tell you what happened from our point of view. We were just settin' up a picnic here, the foals were playin', we were talking, nothin' out of the ordinary was happenin', then suddenly there was this cracklin' sound and down you came. Wham! Right there!" She pointed with a foreleg to the area with the grass flattened in a slightly human shape. "It was a bit startlin', you know."

I studied my landing spot. At least I had been lucky enough to land there on a thick patch of cushy grass, rather than on a path, the table or…

Three young foals ran past, giggling in a game of tag. They raced right over that spot. A thought crossed my mind and I gave a slight shudder. "At least I didn't land on anyone!"

"There is that." The orange pony agreed. "That would've spoiled the day for sure!"

I was silent for a couple more seconds, then my head started to clear slightly. And it told me to start minding my manners. "I'm sorry, my name's Breck. Breck Haines." Automatically I held out my right hand in the traditional greeting. AppleJack looked at it, an eyebrow raised.

"I'm Applejack and…" With a slight hesitation she lifted her near foreleg. I then realized my gaff.

"Oh, sorry. I'm more used to greeting other people. This is how we greet each other." I reached out, took the tip of her hoof and gave it a gentle shake up and down. The orange pony seemed intrigued.

"Oh, a hoof touch! Rather charming."

The foals who had stopped in the game and were watching us suddenly turned to each other and laughingly began their own version of the human handshake, rearing up, touching both front hooves and trying to synchronize the up and down movement without losing their balance, then tumbling down in the lawn, giggling again. I had to laugh as well. Kids, in any form, can make one forget one's problems for a while.

Twilight came up, also watching the gyrating foals. "Now what in the world are they trying to do?"

"I guess they're trying to shake hands," I explained. "Which can be pretty hard to do if you don't happen to have any."

"Shake hands?" the purple unicorn looked as puzzled as AppleJack did but the orange pony now had a more knowing air.

"Their way of sayin' 'howdy-do', like this." She turned back to me and held out her left foreleg. It wasn't the correct one but I wasn't going to quibble over details so I also held out my left hand and shook her hoof again. Twilight watched closely.

"I see. Well, the foals certainly like it! At least it's keeping them busy. The only one here who could do that well is Spike." She looked around and then called "Spike! Could you come here a minute, please?"

As the purple and green dragon approached I logically assumed he was the one named Spike. Fitting. He had an armful of sparkling jewels and as he came up he popped one in his mouth and crunched it up.

Dang thing just ate a ruby that could have kept my farm going for over a year!

"Yeah?" He stopped just a bit short and eyed me. Can't blame him for not trusting me. I mean, how would I like it if I had planned a nice outing and had it gate-crashed by some creature I never heard of ?

"Spike, come up and shake hands with….oh dear," Twilight looked at me and I gave a slight laugh.

"Breck."

"Yes. Breck. Shake hands with Breck."

Spike looked over at me dubiously. "Shake hands? Why would I want to do that?"

"It's how humans say 'hello'.' She explained.

"Hello Spike. I'm very glad to meet you." This time I held out my right hand. The dragon looked at it as if I was going to reach out further and bop him on the head or something.

"Go on, shake hands." AppleJack urged. Spike looked at her, then at Twilight, then slowly offered his left hand. This was going to be awkward but I managed by slightly twisting my hand upside down and grasping his three clawed fingers. I gave it a couple of shakes then released it. Spike then stared at his hand as if to make sure I hadn't somehow removed a finger without his knowing.

"That's it?"

"Well….yes. I suppose."

"Hmph." Spike tossed up a shining emerald and caught it in his mouth. He chewed it with the ease of someone crunching ice from a soda drink.

"So you…eat jewels?" I said in a conversational tone.

"Sure. Beats that pony food." The dragon gave the two ponies a mischievous grin. "Dragons can't eat soft foods all the time!"

"They're perfectly nutritious," Applejack sniffed.

"Yeah but there's no real crunch to 'em!"

I started to shake my head in wonderment but then a thought struck me. "Oh course," I murmured. "Makes perfect sense.

I didn't know I had said that aloud until Spike had popped what appeared to be a sapphire in his mouth and was about to turn away. He stopped and looked at me sideways, the gem making a slight bulge in his cheek. "O'course it does! Uh…what makes perfect sense?"

"Well," I mused. "After crocodiles and alligators hatch they start right in catching and eating as many insects as they can, so the chitin, that's the stuff that makes their hard shells, goes into the making of their own hard body scales. Since you're a dragon you need something far harder so eating gems makes sense."

For a moment no-one spoke, then Spike gave a derisive snort. "Pfft! I knew that! You didn't know that? I thought everybody did!" He turned and walked off, leaving me fighting back a smile. I had seen his eyes widen just a bit during my little lecture and now he was pausing to examine each piece before munching it. Probably looking for the hardest ones now.

"Well, he may have but I certainly didn't!" Twilight exclaimed. "I shall have to remember to note that down somewhere, that was very interesting. You know about dragons then?"

"Oh no, I just read a lot about animals and remembered that from somewhere. More useless info. May not even be true. I mean, what do I know about dragons?" I laughed again. "It just sounds logical."

"It certainly does and I think we could go ahead and assume it as fact. It does explain a lot of things."

"You got something going on in there, don't ya, Breck?" Applejack gave me a grin.

I shrugged. "Sometimes I do, but this time I was just talking off the top of my head."

"Huh? You mean you have a mouth on the top of your head?" Whoops, I had forgotten about the young foals that had stopped gallivanting about and had stood still nearby, listening. "Can I see? It must be weird!" said one.

"Yeah! Can you eat that way too?" another put in.

"Must be messy!"

"Do you drink by sticking your whole head in a bucket?" They crowded up around me, demanding to see this 'extra mouth' and I held up my hands, laughing.

"No no no! It was just an expression! It meant that I was just talking and it just turns out I was right! No mouth on my head. See?"

I then had to bend over a bit to let them see my scalp before they would be satisfied that I didn't have any extra set of lips, teeth and tongue up there and I got the impression they were a bit disappointed. My weird factor went down, I guess. Quick as that they forgot about it and went back to their games.

Twilight was also amused. "I'm sorry but at that age they are –so- impressionable!"

"Hey, don't worry about it. Kids are kids. One of my friends told me her daughter once got up on the sofa and was sorting through her hair. My friend asked her what she was doing and she got the answer she was looking for the eyes on the back of her head she had been told about!"

They laughed at that. "Oh, I'd better not use that expression around them then! They'd be rootin' through my mane for sure!"

"So, are you feeling better now, Breck? You may join us at the table, if you want."

My headache had died down to a dull roar so I thought that option was better than sitting in the cool grass. I'm getting a bit too old to keep doing that for a long period. "Sure, I'll join you." I stood up and began walking down, causing the foals to scamper about me.

"How can you walk on two legs like that?"

"Have you ever fallen down?"

"Can you hop?"

"Can you also stand on one leg?"

It was hard not to trip over them as they bounced about here and there, sometimes even rearing up to try to walk upright themselves. Twilight tried to shoo them away.

"Now now, let's not try to make Breck fall! Move on over there! Come on now."

She wasn't making any headway so on a whim I reached down and picked up the nearest foal. She hardly weighed more than a fat poodle so I tucked her under my arm. She giggled insanely.

"Wheeee! The monster's got meeeeeee!"

I shouldn't have done that, now ALL those little imps wanted to be carried! By the time I got to that table I needed another glass of cider!


End file.
